How Social Media is Killing the Music Industry

Social media has completely changed the way we interact with each other. We are all connected in so many different ways that were never possible before. Social media’s main focus was primarily based on affecting our personal lives. Of course, over time as technology evolved, social media grew. Socialization, privacy, politics, businesses, productivity, and even the music industry are all being affected by social media. The internet has completely changed the music industry as we once knew it. Before technology and social media came into play the music scene was a very different place.

Years ago, before Apple Music and Spotify, music consumers had to rely heavily on CD’s, cassettes, records, top charts, newspapers, and the radio to access music. Today this scene is much different. With the power of social media and the internet, literally in the palm of our hands at all times, we can get access to music in the matter of seconds. Digital music downloads replaced buying physical albums, music videos on YouTube replaced music television such as MTV, and social media sites, like Instagram and Twitter, and trending topics replaced the record labels having to create a musician’s fame. Just as the Internet gave us YouTube, digital downloads, and worldwide trending topics, it has also gifted us with the biggest craze in music: streaming.

As music took a shift from a product-based business to a service-based business, no one was really able to create something that would help to support that transition adequately. With streaming and social media, the music industry is loosing its power over artists and musicans. “Social Media platforms have given musicians more control over the distribution of their music and through the use of services. Many artists now have the option to bypass the industry conventions completely”.

In the video above, we can grasp a better understanding of the impact technology has had on the music industry. Lately, the business side of the music industry has been struggling to generate enough revenue due to social media and technology. The internet has made it much easier to acess music at cheaper costs but, made it much more difficult for artists to make a decent amount of money from just sales alone. This problem has led to artist having to make majority of their money by touring and merchandising since record labels and record sales alone are dramatically declining due to the new digital era.

For years, all music was produced by several major record labels including; Sony, MCA, Universal, RCA and Warner Bros. These labels controlled not only the market but they controlled how their music was promoted to listeners. For the most part, everyone just bought records at local music stores or called local radio stations asking to hear their favorite songs.

Today, there are fewer major record labels and an abundance of independents, each striving to promote their artists to a plethora of consumers. CD’s and records are still being sold and people rarely purchase them this way, because most of us download music on our phones, apps, or listen for free on YouTube.

With most music being free or almost free to acess, how does any label survive? According to Opus Label owner Jeremy Wineberg, “It often times boils down to how much money you have behind you. The major labels have the money and the marketing machine to get their artists to the marketplace. The independent labels rely heavily on word of mouth via social media outlets”.

Above are a few tips for musicans and artists who are on social media.

The music industry is constantly evolving due to the huge influence of social media and technology. All the strategies that musicians can use to help get their work out there or to stay relevant will keep on changing over and over again.

One huge and important tip for artists and musicians today is to be aware of social media platforms and us them to your advantage. Don’t neglect them because these platforms are very important in the industry today.

In this video, I asked a few students from College of DuPage some questions that help understand where music stands in socety today. These 4 students were all between the ages of 18–21. From most of the answers we can understand that everyone is streaming music and that the number of people buying music, physically or digitally, has dramatically decreased. None of these 4 students could actually name 3 different record labels,which can imply that they are not buying or purchasing full albums or know where artists/muscians are signed too. Which can indicate that record deal and labels don’t control the artist. Social media seems to be the number one place where people find out about new music, find new artists, see musicic advertised, and access music.

The meme above shows how music today differs from a few years back. Now we all access music on our computers, phones, and other smart devices.

In the infographic above, we can see by the statistics that digital music is indeed winning. There are more people subscibers to music streaming services than there are to Netflix. Every year this service keeps growing and growing and changing the industry evermore. This shift is beneficial in many ways for consumers and businesses, but also it can be non beneficial for many artists.

The gif above is something many music streamers can relate too. Especially if you pay for multiple music streaming services. At least the costs are cheap from anywhere as low as $5–$10 a month.

In this episode of Savannah’s Social Media Station I talked with Joy Hamilton, essentially about music and social media. She is a graduate of Colombia College downtown Chicago. She currently works on sets of many TV shows and movies that are being filmed in the Chicagoland area. Although TV production is her main focus, she does make her own music and spends lots of her freetime in the studio writing and recording. We discussed how she use to get her music out into the wolrd and how she feels it has changed today. “Everything is just so different” — Joy

Streaming is the main source of the enormous changes in the music industry. Streaming is killing the music industry and taking over. Although streaming is very effctive in many ways, cheap, quick to acesss, huge variety, it also can be very ineffective especially for the artists themselves. In the video above, it explains how streaming is “shaking up” the music industry and how we have seen these changes happen for the good and for the bad.

Social media has had a huge impact on music. By using social media, musicians have the ability to reach out directly to their fans, which helps to create a closer community with them. With revolutions in digital music buying options and and streaming, fans now have many different ways to consume music in the specific ways they wish.

However, social media has also brought many changes in music that arent so beneficial for musicians. Since artists have to market themselves, they now have to worry not only about the music they are creating, but also how they can sell that music to the fans. It’s not like it use to be when artist just can create good art. Now musicians also need to know how to effectively get people to pay attention to their work. With so many musicians and artist out there this can get tough.

Social media has changed so much overtime, especially within the music industry. It has brought huge improvements in some areas, but not in all. The best way to look at these changes, improvements, or consequences is to embrace the positive aspects of them while really trying to find ways overcome, or deal with, the negative aspects.